In the Shade
by deaka
Summary: Leia and Mara friendship fic, one shot. Leia and Mara discuss marriage, Luke, and the Force.


Title: In the Shade  
Rating: G  
Category: Character study, friendship, vignette  
Setting: Yavin 4  
Timeframe: 19-20 ABY, a few months after Union  
Characters: Leia Organa Solo, Mara Jade Skywalker, Anakin Solo, Luke Skywalker

Summary: Leia and Mara discuss marriage, Luke, and the Force.

* * *

"I wasn't expecting to find you here," Leia said, gathering the skirt of her light dress and sitting gingerly beside Mara on the soft grass.

Mara drew her legs up, resting her chin on her knees. Her hair fluttered in the warm breeze. Leia realised she'd only ever seen the other woman wear it loose a handful of times. "I only arrived back last night," Mara said. She glanced across at Leia, her expression almost mischievous. "Surprised Luke."

Leia arched an eyebrow. "I don't think I want to hear details."

Mara's lips curved upwards. She turned her gaze to the front, toward the small group of students practising levitation under Luke's supervision. "Maybe not."

"He was pleased to see you?"

Mara flicked a look at Leia. "Maybe."

Leia smiled, amused. A bubble of laughter trickled over from the cluster of students. Leia looked across to see one of the students, a young female Trill, levitating a dozen small rocks while the others looked on. Anakin caught her eye and grinned, making his own trickle of rocks dance in the air. Luke was kneeling by the Trill girl, but turned his head and said something to Anakin, who grinned again as he let his own handful of rocks fall. Leia mouthed, "_Behave_." Anakin gave her his father's best innocent look and turned his attention back to Luke.

Leia looked at Mara to find the other woman watching her almost thoughtfully. When she caught Leia's eye, though, Mara blinked and looked away, shifting to stretch her legs out. She was wearing a loose pair of trousers and a belted oversize tunic – Leia looked at it closely and thought that it might be one of Luke's.

"Are Han and the twins here with you?" Mara asked.

"Yes," Leia said, and waved a hand toward the temple. "Jacen wanted to take Han for a walk to show him some creatures he's found in the east jungle, and Jaina was anxious to discuss the latest YT-series freighter out of Corellia, so she tagged along."

Mara nodded absently. Her gaze wandered back over to Luke, who'd separated the group up into pairs. "How long are you staying?"

"We'll be out of your hair in a few days." Leia smiled.

Mara looked back at her, startled. "I wasn't—"

"It's all right. I remember being newly married, and you've been away for a month. You don't want to share your husband. It's perfectly understandable."

Mara shook her head. "I didn't mean that."

"Well, if you did, I would understand. And Luke probably doesn't want to be shared, anyway." Leia glanced across at Luke. Mara looked over too, and Luke caught her gaze and smiled. Leia felt the odd movements in the Force between them that she was still getting used to, a flow that her senses told her was there but whose contents she wasn't privy to, like an invisible vein connecting the two. After a second, Luke glanced at Leia as though just realising she was there, flashed her an embarrassed half-smile, and looked back at his students.

Leia glanced over at Mara, who wore a small, rueful smile. Leia quirked an eyebrow.

"Maybe," Mara conceded. "But patience still isn't his best point."

"I'm not sure I want to hear about that, either," Leia said, and Mara grinned a little.

Leia shifted position, moving a little to the right so that she could lean against a handily located tree. Its roughened bark could have been more comfortable, but it would do. "Are you planning on doing some teaching now you're home?" she asked.

Mara's silence was enough to make her glance across. The other woman was looking across the other side of the clearing, where trees were shifting in the breeze. "I think Luke would like me to," she said after a moment. "But teaching children… it's not in my skill set, exactly."

"They're not all children," Leia pointed out. "There are the adult classes."

"Mm," Mara said. Her fingers moved, tugging a blade of grass out at the roots.

Still not in her skill set, Leia thought. "Luke asked me about teaching some classes when my leave of absence first began," she said. Mara glanced at her, plainly surprised; Luke hadn't mentioned it, then. "Of course, I'm so under-qualified the idea is laughable, but even if I had let Luke train me properly, I'm not sure it's something I would want to do. Luke's grown to draw something meaningful out of teaching over the years, but that doesn't mean it's everyone's cup of caf."

Mara frowned across the clearing thoughtfully. "I don't think he sees that," she said. "And it's partly for that reason – that teaching has come to be such an important part of his role as a Jedi, but it wasn't something he consciously chose to do, in the sense of having other options to select from. It's as though he thinks it's an inevitable step on the path to reaching full potential in the Force."

"Like being tempted by the dark side?" Leia said.

Mara flashed a dry smile. "Noticed that?"

Leia sighed. "He was the only Jedi for so long, and, really, he's only had his own path to judge what is and isn't normal. I can understand where he's coming from."

"It's just that he doesn't always realise he does it." Mara rested her chin on her hand as she gazed over at Luke. "That was why I was so wary of coming here earlier – part of the reason."

"But you're here now," Leia murmured.

"He can be persuasive."

"Hm." Over in the sunlit clearing, Luke had slotted Anakin in with a couple of the older students, and was moving through pair by pair. The boy in the group Anakin had joined was explaining something; Anakin appeared to be listening closely.

"What about you?" Mara said, and Leia brought her attention back to the other woman. Mara was twirling a piece of grass between thumb and finger. "Have you considered formal training?"

"Luke hinted, and asked, and pushed," Leia said. "And pushed and pushed some more. It's not for me."

"Being a Jedi? Or using the Force?"

"Being a Jedi."

"I felt the same way, not long ago."

"Luke changed your mind?"

"_I_ changed my mind. Nobody changes it for me. Not even Luke." Mara took a breath. "When I come up against limits, I push them down. It just took a little longer with this one."

"Right," Leia said. She kept her tone and expression neutral, though she had her own thoughts as to the closeness of Mara's feelings for Luke and her feelings about being a Jedi in general, and they way they seemed to have been resolved in tandem. There had to be some kind of cause and effect in play there somewhere.

Which made her wonder about her own rejection of Luke's overtures of training. Was it related to her emotions in a similar way? The subject of training had become an ongoing battle between them over the years, one that Luke doggedly resurrected every so often. Han invariably made a tactical retreat whenever the topic arose; he claimed to her privately that he could see Luke edging in his conversational approach a mile away, but it always caught Leia unawares.

She hoped Luke might ease off on her now that Mara had come around so resoundingly. She had long suspected that his perseverance sprang from a kind of loneliness, that though he had them as family, he had no real companion in his journey in the Force, which was so important to him. Now he'd won Mara over, or she had won him – Leia hoped she'd be off the hook.

And then she would have to think about whether she truly felt so uncomfortable about being a Jedi, whether her father's legacy was still influencing her, or whether she was just being damnably stubborn and didn't want to give in to Luke in what his persistence had turned into an competition of wills over her Force use, which Han had implied she was.

"Anyway," Mara said, breaking into Leia's train of thought. "I still have a few things to finish off with Karrde's organisation before I can commit to any permanent role here." She rubbed a hand across her face. "It's not turning out to be as smooth a process as I thought, the hand-over."

"Ah," Leia said. "So how long do you think you'll be staying for?"

"On Yavin?"

"Mm."

Mara seemed to hesitate. "It depends," she said. She twisted the blade of grass around her thumb, then rolled it into a ball and flicked it away. "I don't think I'll be called away again for a few weeks at least."

"Oh," Leia said.

Mara frowned. She looked at Leia. "Did you – " she began, but paused. She looked across at Luke again, but he had his back to them. Mara tilted her head and regarded him almost wistfully. Leia raised her eyebrows and waited.

Mara sighed, and shook her head. "Never mind."

"Mara," Leia said. Mara glanced at her. "Did I what?"

Mara pressed her lips together, then exhaled again. "Luke is – you know how I feel about Luke," she said, not looking at Leia. "Sometimes I think I'm not very good at this marriage thing, though. It feels so _strange_. He's always there. He's in my head, but he's also – in the refresher, leaving the lids off things, elbowing me in bed and throwing off all the blankets, tripping over my shoes in the hallway, eating the last of the spiced ribenes, and just – there. I'm not used to it. I feel like I have to get some space, just to deal with it. Then I miss him. I think I'm terrible at this." She put her hands to her head. "Luke knows it, too, and he's incredibly supportive in that way of his. It drives me crazy."

"Hm," Leia said. "I was more or less living with Han before we were married, so the refresher arguments were nothing new. But even though we'd been together for years, marriage took some getting used to." She tilted her head. "You're still adjusting to the relationship, let alone the marriage. Give yourself time. You and Luke are both very independent people. You can cope. Just don't beat yourself up."

Mara drew her legs up, crossing her arms over her knees. "I never would have expected to see myself married," she said. "I mean, when I was younger, maybe. Much younger. But by the time I was old enough to think about relationships, I knew that assassins didn't get married." She touched her fingertips to her forehead absently, looking across the clearing. "More recently – no. It still wasn't something I saw in my future. Luke…" Her voice softened, a little. "I saw Luke, maybe. But marriage?" Her gaze drifted to Luke, and her expression seemed, for a moment, briefly sad. A memory? "I didn't think that he would be prepared for that."

"Why wouldn't he be?" Leia was surprised, and genuinely curious.

Mara smiled faintly. "He's lost so much," she murmured. "His head's a funny place."

Leia frowned, not understanding in the slightest.

"I suppose I underestimated him," Mara said. "Maybe he underestimated himself."

Leia followed her gaze and looked thoughtfully at her brother. She had thought for years that she knew Luke best of anyone in the galaxy; she had never suspected that Mara might have been keeping an eye on him from a distance.

_Probably doing a better job of it, too,_ Leia thought with a flicker of regret. She'd known Luke had been foundering in more recent years, but she had been extremely busy herself with her duties as Chief of State, not to mention the requirements of her own family. Besides - Luke had never approached her directly for advice, and she wasn't sure how welcome her observations would be. He wasn't always particularly receptive to her suggestions when it came to the Force, whether it stemmed from pride or some trace of lingering hurt over her refusal to further her training with him.

Mara, it seemed, had gotten through to him, and Mara had her head on straight.

"I was convinced that I wouldn't get married," Leia admitted. "It took Han years to get through to me. I thought the war had made me too hard, too focused on the Alliance. I didn't think I would be able to give Han enough."

"And?"

"He was very persuasive." Leia quirked an eyebrow and smiled.

Mara laughed. "I see."

"I'm glad he was, too," Leia said. "Though – honestly – there are times I still feel like I don't give them enough, amidst everything else. Sometimes I wonder. There's always something coming up, demanding my attention."

Mara twisted her lips in sympathy, and her gaze drifted back toward Luke. "It almost seems to be a family trait, running yourself ragged for the galaxy."

"Something of a perverse inheritance," Leia said. She hadn't intended bitterness, but some bled through.

Mara glanced at her. She seemed to hesitate, and opened her mouth, but then Anakin called Leia. They both looked toward the small group.

The class appeared to be winding up. Anakin was headed across the springy grass at full speed, wearing a wide grin. Leia smiled.

"That was great," Anakin said breathlessly. "When can I come stay here, Mom?"

"Not yet," Leia said. "You're too young. Maybe in a year or two."

"Aw," Anakin turned back toward the group, which was beginning to break up and drift away. "Did you see me? Uncle Luke said I did great."

"I did see," Leia said. "And you did do wonderfully."

"I was with Calem and Shen," Anakin said. "Shen's from Chandrila."

"Hm?" Leia noticed that Mara was watching her with Anakin, her expression faintly pensive. It occurred to her to wonder whether Mara and Luke planned to have children. Luke was close to his niece and nephews, but Leia hadn't spoken to him in quite a few years about whether he wanted children of his own – not since before Callista left, in fact.

"Hey," Luke approached over the grass, having overseen the dispersal of the children. He smiled at Mara, stepping into the shade with them. "Lunch?"

"Sounds good to me." Mara caught his hand, and came to her feet easily. Luke's hand brushed the small of her back as she turned beside him.

"Coming?" Luke asked Leia and Anakin.

"We might see if we can find Han and Jacen and Jaina," Leia said. She lifted her eyebrows at Anakin. "They'll be heading back now."

"We'll see you back at the temple, then," Mara said. Leia nodded, and Luke and Mara headed off. Mara was speaking, Luke listening attentively, his head turned toward her, eyes on her face. The mottled light and shadow spilled over them, filtered through the trees overhead.

Leia smiled, and took Anakin's smaller hand in hers. "Come on," she said, looking down at him. "Dad and Jacen and Jaina won't be far away."

-end-


End file.
